


Little Soldier Boys, Come Marching Home

by chronicallyHaughty



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-01
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2019-05-04 21:26:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14602053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicallyHaughty/pseuds/chronicallyHaughty
Summary: Even there, two kilometres away from the site of the battle, the bellow of the Kaiju seems much too loud, much too close.





	Little Soldier Boys, Come Marching Home

“Hold on, we’re sending in Great Red as backup-!”

“No, don’t. You won’t make it here in time. _Fuck._ Tobi, I… I’m sorry. This was never, I never meant for you to,  _gods,_ I’m  _sorry!”_ Deidara’s voice gets an increasingly desperate tone to it, before breaking at the end. There is only ragged breathing on the other end of the comms now, and the control room is perfectly quiet, as though its occupants are all holding their breath.

Tsunade certainly feels like doing so at the moment, but she fights the urge. Her men, these  _boys,_ really, need their Marshall coherent and in control right now.

Gunfire’s left leg and arm are both entirely wrecked, and even two kilometres away from the site of the battle, the bellow of the Kaiju seems much too loud, much too close. After a beat, Tobi clears his throat.

“It’s okay, Dei, really. It’s been worth it, I think! Thank you. For giving me this chance.” Tobi sounds choked up, but there’s still a smile audible in his voice. That boy didn’t know how not to smile.

“Fuck you.” A breathless laugh, and Tsunade can picture Deidara rolling his eyes clear as day. “Seriously, Uchiha, piss off.”

Behind her, Tsunade can hear Itachi make a strangled noise. She doesn’t have to turn around to know that he’s clutching his partner’s hand like a lifeline. These desperate times have turned them all into a family unit, broken to all hell, but more whole than they were before. Every single time someone is lost, it stabs at the cracks in their taped up hearts.

(When she had given Itachi the news that his younger brother’s application to the Jaeger pilot training program had been accepted, she had honestly thought he was about to take a swing at her. They couldn’t play favourites with the entire world at stake, Itachi knew this. But when it comes to family, rationality tends to take a backseat to emotion. Kisame’s hand on his shoulder had probably saved her a bruise, holding Itachi back without a single word being uttered.)

Even if they win this war, so much will be lost forever. _Isn’t that the way of things._

Tsunade clears her throat and forces herself to speak the words she desperately does not want to say.

“Dragon Gunfire. You are in an evacuated area. Are you prepared to, to.” _This world,_ Tsunade thinks bitterly as the rest of that sentence refuses to leave her mouth, _has become a more horrid place than whatever hell any preacher could ever imagine._

“Yes, ma’am,” Tobi interrupts her before the silence can stretch on too long.

“We’re only waiting for the Kaiju to come within reach,” Deidara continues, seamlessly continuing Tobi’s train of thought.

After San Fransisco, after Sasori, she had deemed the chances slim of Deidara (truly one of their brightest) ever drifting with someone else again. To share your mind with someone else, after experiencing someone else  _dying_ with that link intact... Tsunade had been glad to be proven wrong, for once. Tobi was a good kid. Deidara, too, in his own way. Their criminal backgrounds aside, her soldiers have more than proven their dedication to protect humanity from the alien onslaught.

_And none of them deserve this fate._

Tsunade closes her eyes as the Kaiju’s roar sounds once more over the comms, this time much closer. Predictably, the gigantic monstrosity has used the giant robot’s disabled left side to its advantage, coiling around its legs, trying to topple it over like a tree struck by lightning. It's not a hard thing to do, what with all the damage the Jaeger has taken. Millions of dollars poured into the engineering, and now it’s reduced to scrap metal, destined to be recycled in the patching of coming generations of Jaegers. Tsunade’s hands are dripping with the blood of the fallen, and still she must carry on.

The screech of metal being crushed is agonisingly familiar to everyone in the room by now, but that doesn’t make hearing it any less harrowing. The monster, dubbed _Lindorm_ due to its snake-like features, stretches out its arms to make a grab for the still-functioning right arm of the Jaeger, but Tobi has turned out to be a skilled pilot, and even without Deidara’s side of the mech to back him up he’s fast enough to slam a sword through its shoulder, effectively pinning it to the street long enough for Deidara to disengage from his seat and manually override the safety settings, deliberately causing the robot’s volatile energy core to overload.

**[WARNING: CRITICAL CORE FAILURE IMMINENT]**

Lindorm’s roar of pain and fury is deafening, but even so the pilots’ last words make it through the comms.

“We’ll give Sasori and the Zombies your love!”

**[JAEGER CORE WILL SELF DESTRUCT IN 5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … ]**

“Just don’t join us too soon, yeah?”

**[JAEGER “DRAGON GUNFIRE” HAS BEEN DESTROYED]**

**Author's Note:**

> I had loads of ideas on this topic. Sasori was crushed while Deidara and him were still mind melding and stuff, so that really sucks for Dei, y'know. Kakuzu and Hidan kicked it years ago. The Akatsuki were criminals enlisted in the Jaeger program to shave off some decades from their prison sentences. They all die, women kick ass. That's it, basically.
> 
> [Writing Tumblr](http://chronicallyhaughty.tumblr.com/) | [Main Tumblr](http://nattvingen.tumblr.com/) | [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/Feloss)


End file.
